POVs this chapter:  Arius, Leo, Virran, Saggi, Talia

Arius's POV

What you don't see on TV is just how long and dark the cylander ride to the surface is. I've never been good with tight underground spaces like that, and I felt myself breathing heavily, starting to panic. I couldn't afford to panic, not here, not now, not seconds before the start of the games. I closed my eyes and hoped the trip would end. And then it did, I felt warmpth on my face, bright sunlight and someone was saying "...Let the games begin!"

There were trees. That was the important thing. Aqua said as long as there were trees we'd be alright. The entire area was surrounded by forest. The cornucopia... even bigger in person, a giant golden thing, and it looked beautiful in the sun.

Focus, Arius. The piles of weapons and supplies were not for me. I thought back on Aqua's instructions from the night before, Get a pack, and get out of dodge. Aqua had been my mentor more than anyone else, Cetus stared at a wall for most of private training. I felt sorry for him, it wasn't his fault we were in this situation. But here we were.

Nearby was a tarp, and a pack. Aqua said I needed the pack. The tarp was going to slow me down.

The gong sounded, and I bolted off the plate, but almost turned around when I saw just how much faster than me everyone else was. Shortie, I heard Aqua tease in my head, but it wasn't as funny this time.

I was much closer to the pack than Cora was, but we reached it at about the same time, and she had a knife. She slashed at me with her knife, and I scrambled back, suddenly not knowing what to do. Was I supposed to fight Cora for the pack? Find another? Run and hope she didn't chase me?

Cora lifted the pack on her shoulder and crumpled to the ground, and Taur materialized behind her, holding a bloody mace. I hadn't seen him coming. How had I not seen him coming? He took a step towards me.

I bolted, and when I looked back, Taur was fighting someone else. I stopped, catching my breath, it was all happening too fast...

"Arius?" I jumped, but it was only Aqua, running towards me with a pack and a knife. "Arius, why are you still here? Get into the woods!" I stared at her. "Move!" She grabbed my by the shirt, and began running towards the woods. "Move move move!" I ran.

Fire sliced through my side, and I screamed, dropping to the ground. A spear had grazed my back. "Get up!" someone was saying, but all I saw was the big district one tribute running towards us with his sword.

Aqua yanked me to my feet, and I forced myself to think. "Here," she said, shoving her pack into my hands. "Get into the woods, and don't stop running until you can't anymore." I stared at her. "Go!"

"Aqua, what-" Aaron was almost here.

"Go!"

"But Aqua-"

"Arius, GO!"

I ran, looking over my shoulder, as Aqua held out her knife as Aaron ran with his sword. And then they disappeared as I ran into the trees.

I ran.

I kept running until I couldn't see the field.

I kept running until I couldn't hear the sounds of fighting.

I kept running and running until I realized I wasn't running, and I was lying on the ground, breathing. In and out. In and out. And then I forced myself to stand, and ran a little more.

Leo's POV

I jogged around the cornucopia, letting my sword hang loose. I wasn't afraid. No one was sneaking up on me.

I scanned the scene, seeing if anyone was unengaged. There- Victoria was on the right side, quietly collecting backpacks and other supplies, and somehow no one had noticed yet. She was being careful.

"Lea," I said, jogging over to her. "Victoria's by the side. Can you take care of her?"

Lea glanced over, and saw her. "Sure, good spot." She ran off and I returned to looking around. Ari Taur and Talia were engaged. Lea was attacking Victoria. Aaron was fighting that girl from eleven. Good. No one was going to stop me.

I ran over to where Gem was, weilding a pair of spears against Cancia, who was dodging. "Hey Gem!" I yelled, and as she turned around I sliced her spear in half.

"What the hell Leo-?" started Gem, but I was already charging with my sword. She blocked with her half-spear, faster than I'd have suspected, and shifted her stance from attacking into defense. I'll admit it- she was good. I could see why Aaron had wanted to pick her. It was a pity, but if Aaron was going to play cheap with me, I was going to do the same.

I started with a series of quick alternating strokes, testing her defenses, and they were good. Stupid Aaron. Stupid stupid Aaron. Why did you have to make this about them? He'd really given me no choice but to kill her. And then, when Liam came back having triumphantly killed the girl from seven and boy from six, I'd have serious grounds to claim leadership. Aaron had never deserved the leadership of the careers. He had just taken it, and everyone else had been to afraid to do anything about it. Well, not me.

I began attacking in earnest. I needed to end this fight and go kill a lot more people, or Aaron would say I wasted my time, and steal the leadership back again. I searched Gem for a weakness, for some kind of flaw-

There. She attacked from her right, and from her left she only defended. She was weaker on the left side.

That didn't make sense, I'd seen her in training- she threw and fought just as well form the left as from the right. The last day of training I'd watched her fight her brother, and I'd seen her beat him easily attacking only from the left.

I tested her left side, and she immediately switched back to defensive, shifting her right side towards me, keeping... keeping her left ankle away. There it was. Her left ankle was purposly shifting away from me, Gem was literally putting her best foot forewards.

I needed to attack, now. It was a risk, but I had to take it if I wanted to end this fight quickly.

I darted around her back, to the right, and as she turned left to face me, I slashed at her left foot with my sword. She immediately gasped in pain, scrambling back, and losing any semblence of stance. I struck, lifting my sword and stabbing it through her chest. Gem blinked a few times, and then stopped.

I stood back, panting. That was a hard fight, much harder than it should have-

"GEM!"

I turned around. There was the other one, the brother, Nye, running towards me. Of course, I killed his sister. I lifted my sword and prepared to face him, Nye wasn't nearly as good as his sister so this shouldn't be a problem.

But Nye didn't slow down or size me up like I thought he would. He was going to crash into me. I quickly lifted my sword and slashed his arm, but he didn't stop even a little, he lifted his spear, and threw it harder and deadlier than I'd ever seen him, and I just didn't have enough time to dodge before gravity lunged to the right and everything went dark.

Virran's POV

"Are you good?" I crouched down and pulled Libby to her feet. "Are you alright?"

She breathed, calming herself. "I... I think so."

"Good. Alright." I looked around. "We have to get out of here, before the careers come after us."

She nodded, panting. "Right."

Allying with Libby was probably a bad idea, I knew that, but... anyone who'd seen her standing there during the reaping, staring into the crowd, looking so afraid... it just wasn't right. You do what you can.

Besides, Libby wasn't stupid, I'd spent time training with her this week, and despite her frightened outlook she knew her stuff. She aced the edible plants section, she learned knot tying and fire starting in minutes. More than that, she was just nice to be around. She didn't like talking with so many people, but when you got her going she just talked, she told stories, and sometimes she even laughed. And I liked listening to her. And I didn't want her to die, not so soon. So here we were.

"Liam's coming," pointed Libby.

He was. Liam was a puzzle if I'd ever seen one. He was alternatively hot and cold, snapping at Libby and then helping her on the wall, staring off and scowling, and then smiling and helping. I could figure him out, but I guess I didn't have to. You have to give people the benefit of the doubt, or just never trust anyone at all. And that wasn't an option for me.

Liam jogged over, holding a sword. "Hi," he said. "Let's get into the woods. The careers all have weapons, and won't be distracted for much longer."

"You're coming with us?" I asked in surprise. Liam was a strong guy, stronger than I was. The careers had already shown a bit of favor towards him, if he wanted to he could probably get into the pack.

"Yeah," he nodded. "I don't trust the careers. Let's go."

"Alright," I said, and we took off into the woods.

It was unreal, being here. But things were going well. I had two allies. And for a moment, I allowed myself to smile.

"Virran!" shriked Libby.

I spun around, and saw Liam lunging at me with the sword. What? I thought we were allies! I dodged the blow, and pulled out my knife. "Liam! What-" I dodged again "I thought we were allies!"

"Like I would ever ally with you," he snarled, striking again, and I just managed to dodge. I couldn't keep this up. He had a sword.

Liam lunged, and then spun to the side, I felt a surge of pride as I saw Libby striking him with a tree branch.

Liam said a word I felt sure the gamemakers would censor, and I readied myself for his next attack. But he didn't attack me. He went for Libby.

No!

There was a moment where I felt myelf moving, holding the knife, and jumping, and then there was a lot of blood and a lot of confusion and noise, and I was standing, panting, my knife covered in blood, and Liam was dead on the ground.

"Oh my god," I whispered.

"Virran," whispered Libby.

I just killed someone.

"Virran," Libby said.

I never meant to kill him.

"Virran we have to get out of here."

I shook my head. "Yeah. We do. Okay." I picked up the sword, and remembered what my mentor had said, put as much distance between you and the cornucopia as you can. "Okay, we have to go." I took Libby's hand, and I don't know if I was doing it for her or for me, but it helped me steady myself as we ran into the woods.

Saggi's POV

My mentor had just said get the bow and get out, don't worry about anything else, and he was absolutely right. What he hadn't said was just how hard that was going to be. Fast as I was, msot of the careers were faster and reached the cornucopia faster than I did. And they were surrounding it too. It was impossible to get to.

Well. Time to put those scout skills into action. I didn't go through training program for nothing. Well, actually, I did, but I had other things to focus on at the moment.

I shoved myself to the ground, and began to crawl uphill towards the cornucopia. Only a great idiot crawls downhill towards anything, because there is utterly no point. Once I realized I couldn't get to the cornucopia through speed, I weaved through the woods to get downhill, behind the cornucopia. It was the only bit of cover in this field. I needed trees.

The fighting was in full swing, and seemed to be distrcting the careers at least. The girl from five looked like she was about to beat the girl from six, while the boy from one was easily handling the pair from twelve and another tribute lay dead at his feet, I couldn't see who it was. As I looked around, I stopped cold. There was Tarian, fighting Ari with a sword. What was he doing? Our mentor told him to head straight for the woods! I wrenched my gaze away. I didn't want to see someone who had become a weird kind of friend fighting a career. I made my way towards the cornucopia.

There it was- barely ten yards away, a beautiful finely carved wooden bow and a sheath of twenty four arrows. Twenty four whole arrows. If I could get my hands on that bow, the games would be mine.

This was the hardest part of the crawl. So close, yet so far. Ten yards. Five. Three. I got up off my stomach and ran over, snatching the bow, then looked around. No one had seen me. Now I had to get out.

Crawling away meant crawling downhill, which as I said, is something only a great idiot does. You can never see who's behind you, and anyone in front of you has an easy shot. But in this case, I didn't know if I had much of a choice. Please don't be too dissappointed in me, Kane, I thought, reflcting on the lessons from the master scout, before dropping to my stomach and then crawling downhill.

I think I almost made it, too, before a knife whizzed into the ground just to my left, and I jumped up. There was Ari, sword abandonned for a set of throwing knives, and she was running after me. I ran.

I didn't look down. You're supposed to look down when you run, but I didn't this time, and it saved my life. I was staring at the woods when I tripped and went flying, just as a pair of knives whizzed where my head had been a moment before. I forced myself up, and looked back. I had tripped over a dead body. Tarian's dead body.

I bolted, and it wasn't because of Ari, faster than I had before and within seconds I was in the trees, ducking and weaving under branches, moving through the woods the way only a scout from Nine could. I wasn't afraid of Ari following me, not when there were plenty other tributes to kill at the cornucopia, but I didn't want to think about Tarian. I wasn't upset by him being dead- I knew at least one, probably both of us were going to die- but I didn't like the finality of being the only tribute from Nine left in the games. It's one thing seeing a picture in the sky. It's quite another seeing a friend lying dead on the ground.

Talia's POV

We watched the games, as part of our training, old ones, over and over again, and I'd seen this enough to know what was happening. The fighting was dying down. We were almost done. It was probably down to me in fact, I just had to kill Carter and get back to the main area. He should have dropped his pack. It was slowing him down. It was probably what killed him, I thought, as I rammed my sword into his side. After taking a moment to make sure he was dead, I went to rejoin the others.

Here we were, and there were... considerably less of us than I had initially assumed. Not in the career sense, both from One and Two had survived of course, but Leo was missing which was certainly a surprise, and of the three non careers people had decided to invite, only Nye remained. Easily the least skilled.

"So," said Aaron, surveying the carnage. "Let's go across the stream so they can take care of the bodies."

Right, the stream. It was nice to have a water source so close by. There was a stretch of meadow across it that ran through the forest, and looked to open up into a larger plains area. We kept to the meadow though, so we'd be able to get back to the cornucopia as fast as we could once the hovercraft was gone.

"Who did everyone kill?" asked Aaron. "I got the girl form eleven, and both from twelve."

Show off. Three kills in one day. I only had one. "I killed Tarian," said Ari. It took me a moment to remember which one that was. "Oh, there was a girl who ran off with a bow and arrows, but I never saw her face. I'd guess maybe Cora?"

"The girl from ten?" asked Taur. "No, I killed her."

None of us could come up with a name, and I relaized it was my turn. "I killed Carter."

"And I killed the girl from six, her name might have been Vicky," said Lea. "But my question is where the hell is Leo? Is he dead? Did he run off?"

"I killed him," said Nye, and everyone turned to look at him.

There was a moment's silence before Aaron burst out laughing. "Good for you! I was afraid I'd have to kill him myself. Why'd you do it?"

"He killed Gem," said Nye, and for the first time I noticed he wasn't smiling. I hadn't seen him do anything but smile during training. "He broke the alliance. So I killed him."

"I'm fine with this, he was pretty annoying," shrugged Aaron.

"Not so fast," said Lea, staring intently at Nye. "How do we know this is true?"

"Do you see Gem anywhere?" asked Nye. "Do you think I'd just attack Leo for no reason?" He shrugged. "Look, either believe me or don't believe me, if we're going to fight about this I can go get my spear."

"Drop it Lea," said Aaron. "He had it coming. Happy?"

Lea didn't look happy. "Happy."

"Okay, so where's Liam, then?" asked Ari. "Did anyone kill him?"

Leo's hanger on-er? "Wasn't he going after Six and Seven?" I said.

"I didn't see them dead," frowned Ari.

"He's probably dead," said Taur. "Either Virran and Libby got him, or someone else did during the fighting and we didn't notice. Either way, we'll set a watch tonight, so we won't have to worry about him killing us in our sleep."

"Hovercraft's gone," pointed Ari. She and Taur stood up and started splashing across the stream.

"Good," said Aaron. "Let's start stocking the supplies. Then, everyone grab a weapon, and we'll send four of us out hunting. The rest watch the supplies."

The tried and true career plan. He probably thought the games were just starting, but as far as I was concerned they were already halfway over.